I won't go into the
history of the F-16 as I'm pretty sure everyone knows all about it. Tamiya
entered the 1/48 Viper market a couple of years ago with the Block 50 kit which
superseded every other kit as the F-16 kit of choice in this scale. Having built
the Block 50 version when it was first released, I decided to make the next one a
Block40 which differs mainly from the Block 50 by using a different HUD,
wheels (depending on timeframe) and having external fuselage strengthening
plates. There's quite a wide variety of aftermarket correction and detail sets
available for this kit and I used a few of them along with some scratchbuilt
detail of my own.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The WAR HUD as it's known
is quite distinctively shaped and mine came from master modeller and
aftermarket guy DrPepper who came out with a nicely detailed resin HUD
which is quite easy to use. The fuselage strengthening plates are from a
Korean company called Crossdelta, they're etched with adhesive backing and
went down a treat on the kit. To change the wheels I used Royale
Resin
aftermarket wheels which are nicely detailed and designed for the Tamiya
Viper. The decals for the 51FW's 36FS were also Crossdelta and are some of
the nicest decals I've used with full colour instructions and printed by
Cartograf. The intake FOD cover was made from kitchen foil and the decal
was from the sheet to add a little colour. Paints used were
Xtracrylix, Tamiya and Vallejo sprayed by my Aztek 470.
The latest Tamiya
boxing provides the option to build any USAF F-16C variant from Block25-52, but
I'm more than happy with my final result and I have several more kits to be
built
WAR HUD available
from http://www.drpepperresins.com/
Wheels for the F-16
from http://www.royaleresin.net/aircraft.html
Crossdelta available
from http://www.spruebrothers.com/
Stephen Prior
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